Open Letter To President John Dramani Mahama

Mr President, I pray this letter finds you in good health. I have been bothered by the impunity with which foreigners come to Ghana and behave as if we Ghanaians do not exist so they need to bring us out of the holes they think we live in unto the surface of the earth. I have travelled a bit and my observation is that no matter how inferior the indigenes may seem to the foreigner they hold very dear to their heart their natural resources.

The Bible and because I believe that I was created by God in his image and that in the God’s plan and purpose for my life, I am equal to anybody also created by God. To me it means that no matter how rich and powerful another nation may be, in the sight of God we are the same and there is no way I should sell my birth right to them. The same Bible teaches me the curse that befalls any person who sells their birth right because when Esau did sell his to Jacob, we all know how that has impacted on the world today.

We live in a country that has 275 parliamentarians representing the interests of about 25million people in the land. Only God knows what laws they make in a year. As I am writing we know they have a Select Committee on the Land, Natural Resources and Environment and as the whole world, spearheaded by the Chinese are bent on obliterating us from the surface of the earth, they have chosen to be silent. As usual as it has become the Ghanaian number one disease of “I do not want to know” let alone takes a decision, because they lack any leadership. Here we are faced with a situation where foreigners have taken our hospitality towards them as a sign of foolishness by destroying the very existence of the Ghanaian but those elected to be our mouth piece have chosen to be silent.

I know to you as the president you live in a position of prestige, when you are no longer the president of Ghana, you would be permitted to live in any part of the world you choose. And because of your closeness to world leaders, being friendly and in good terms with most of them, they would welcome you with open arms to live in their land. I would be surprised if the Chinese, Iranians, Irish just to mention but a few would not accommodate you if Ghana becomes the province of the Chinese.

Mr President, what about Kwame Kyei, my younger brother who never had the privilege given to you to go to school? His only livelihood is the land that had been given to him by friends to farm but unfortunately, today, the Chinese have taken over his land. He was chased from the land by armed soldiers and the Chinese, their paymasters and had been warned never to set foot on the land again. You see the Bible says a good father leaves inheritance for his children’s children. What do you want to happen to my brother? How on earth would a foreigner come all the way from China to take his farming land from him?

Please, in law they have a term called “Double Jeopardy”. We were driven from the land left as an inheritance to us by our dead father because his nephews would not allow us to farm on the land. As if that was not enough, all my father’s life, he was a Cocoa farmer who produced cocoa to make most of you whose parents had political influence from 1957 to use the revenue from his cocoa to educate you and the rest of your generation, however, when we needed cocoa marketing board scholarships because of who we are without anybody to connect us, we remained on the land and today, you the same people our father sacrificed so much to make sure you had better education pays us back by selling our land to the Chinese and other foreigners.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that many wars have been fought on land. Do you remember the various wars that went on before the Gold Coast was colonised by the imperialists? Have you forgotten the bitter war of 350 years fought in South Africa because of land? Can you and those in your government tell me in the history of Ghana where the Ghanaian had gone to even acquire a land to farm that he had been successful? I would like you to inquire from the many Ghanaians who went to Nigeria if they succeeded to acquire a land to open a business that the host country obliged?

I would like to know from you as my president to tell me in simple English if today Ghana has eleven regions and that China has now been accepted as part of Ghana. Is there any covenant that Ghana and China have entered into with the proviso that they should fly their citizens over to aggressively destroy our eco-system? At least those of us working the land would like to register our displeasure the way the whole Chinese attitude towards our treasured asset, Land is being administered.